Low-grade inflammation is a risk factor for depression, psychosis and other major psychiatric disorders. It is associated with poor response to antidepressant and antipsychotics, and could potentially be a treatment target. However, there is limited data on the prevalence of low-grade inflammation in major psychiatric disorders, and on the characteristics of patients who show evidence of inflammation. We examined the prevalence of low-grade inflammation and associated socio-demographic and clinical factors in acute psychiatric inpatients...

OBJECTIVE: People affected by schizophrenia spectrum disorders are at a higher risk of offending violently. This study aims to investigate risk factors in relation to the peri-diagnostic period and possible predictors of post-diagnostic violence of people diagnosed for the first time in the public mental health system. METHODS: The study compared various risk factors for post-diagnostic violence in patients ( n = 1453) diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder...

The brain structural correlates of cognitive and psychopathological symptoms within the active phase in severely psychotic schizophrenic inpatients have been rarely investigated. Twenty-eight inpatients with a DSM-5 diagnosis of Schizophrenia (SZ), admitted for acute psychotic decompensation, were assessed through a comprehensive neuropsychological and psychopathological battery. All patients underwent a high-resolution T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging investigation. Increased psychotic severity was related to reduced grey matter volumes in the medial portion of the right superior frontal cortex, the superior orbitofrontal cortex bilaterally and to white matter volume reduction in the medial portion of the left superior frontal area...

BACKGROUND: Mental illness is an often overlooked comorbidity in the total joint arthroplasty (TJA) population. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the risk of schizophrenia on the outcomes of TJA. METHODS: The nationwide inpatient sample was used to identify a cohort of 505,840 patients having total hip arthroplasty between 2009 and 2012, of which 953 patients (0.2%) had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify the impact of schizophrenia on short-term medical and surgical complications...

INTRODUCTION: In Argentina, like in the rest of the world, deinstitutionalization policies have been implemented. In our country, the shortage of epidemiologic data regarding admissions in mental health is a limitation for the discussion about how this changes should be implemented and its effect. OBJECTIVES: Epidemiologic data of inpatients of the Mental Health Unit of the Teodoro Álvarez General Hospital between June 2012 and May 2013 has been analyzed in order to elaborate a comparative analysis with a previous study that took place in the same unit on the years 2004-2005...

OBJECTIVE: Although catatonia can occur secondary to a general medical condition, catatonia itself has been known to lead to various medical compolications. Although case reports on the association of catatonia with subsequent medical complications have been documented, no comprehensive large-scale study has been performed. To investigate specific medical complications following catatonia, we conducted a retrospective cohort study of specific medical complications of schizophrenia patients with catatonia...

Background: Schizophrenia is a recurrent, debilitating disease that is rarely curable. Rapid intervention after the first episode of schizophrenia has been shown to positively affect the prognosis. Unfortunately, basic data is scarce on first-episode schizophrenia in Korean patients making it difficult to create a comprehensive list of risk factors for relapse. This study aims to investigate the demographic characteristics and institutional factors of patients with first-episode schizophrenia in order to identify risk factors for relapse...

OBJECTIVE: To study the association between the serum creatine kinase (CK) level and aggressive behavior in patients with schizophrenia. METHOD: This retrospective study recruited 2780 Chinese patients with schizophrenia from January 2009 to December 2013 at the psychiatric inpatient units of West China Hospital. The diagnosis was made according to the DSM-IV criteria. The serum level of CK was checked. RESULTS: Aggressive behavior was positively correlated with the serum CK level (r=0...

Clozapine has been shown to be the most efficacious therapy for treatment resistant schizophrenia, estimated at one third of all schizophrenia cases. There is significant morbidity and mortality associated with clozapine including risk of agranulocytosis, aspiration pneumonia, bowel ischemia, myocarditis, seizures, and weight gain. Here we present a case of a 62-year-old man with chronic paranoid schizophrenia refractory to numerous antipsychotics who was started on clozapine therapy during an acute inpatient psychiatric admission...

BACKGROUND: Sexual dysfunction occurs commonly in patients with psychiatric illness and may be related to the primary mental disorder, comorbidity with sexual disorders or medical illness, or medications used for mental disorders treatment, but the magnitude of this problem is unknown. AIM: To estimate the prevalence of current sexual activity, sexual dysfunction, and sexual attitude and influence of factors on patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: This study used a cross-sectional design with a total of 317 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia...

BACKGROUND: Withdrawal of life-support for an individual with refractory schizophrenia following attempted suicide remains controversial. Discussion regarding prognosis of mental illness and the distinction between somatic and mental illness brings out many ethical issues. This paper will examine the role and weight of severe persistent mental illness in the withdrawal of life support following attempted suicide. CASE DESCRIPTION: A 30-year-old gentleman with deafness and schizophrenia was admitted with multiple self-inflicted visceral stab wounds...

The aim of the nationwide retrospective matched cohort study was to evaluate health service utilization and medical costs between patients with schizophrenia who received long-acting injectable (LAI) risperidone and those who took risperidone orally. Data were sourced from the 2008 to 2013 Psychiatric Inpatient Medical Claim Dataset in Taiwan. The sample selection process was performed by propensity score matching. Finally, there were 691 patients in the exposed cohort and 1382 patients in the unexposed cohort...

BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggested a complex association between Toxoplasma gondii (TG) infection and host lipid metabolism. Both TG infection and metabolic disturbances are very common in patients with schizophrenia, but this relationship is not clear. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated the association between TG seropositivity, serum lipid levels, body mass index (BMI) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) in 210 male inpatients with schizophrenia...

The status of borderline personality disorder (BPD) as a diagnostic category is a matter of continuing controversy. In the United States, BPD is one of the most frequent diagnoses of psychiatric inpatients, and a similar tendency emerges in Europe. Nearly all theoretical aspects of BPD have been questioned, including its very position as a personality disorder. In this article, we trace the evolution of the borderline concept from the beginning of the 20th century to the current psychometric research. We argue that the status of BPD is fraught with conceptual difficulties, including an unrecognized semantic drift of major phenomenological terms (e...

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder, and its mechanisms have not been fully elucidated. A functional single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) present in the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, Val158Met (rs4680) (Chr22: 19,963,498), is possibly related to the violent behavior of schizophrenia patients. However, the specific variant that causes violent behavior is still unknown. Since the Val variation of Val158Met (rs4680) introduces a CG site into the sequence, the methylation level of the Val158Met (rs4680) region may also have an association with the homicidal behavior of schizophrenia patients...

Accumulating data suggest an association between inflammation and schizophrenia and related psychosis. While several studies have established this immune-psychosis association in adult schizophrenia patients, there is very limited data associating inflammation with acute psychosis in children and adolescents. The ratio between neutrophils and lymphocyte, computed from routine blood counts, has been shown to correlate with traditional markers of inflammation, and is therefore considered a proxy-marker for inflammation...

BACKGROUND: Underlying psychiatric conditions may affect outcomes of surgical treatment for colorectal cancer (CRC) because of complex clinical presentation and treatment considerations. We hypothesized that patients with psychiatric illness (PSYCH) would have evidence of advanced disease at presentation, as manifested by higher rates of colorectal surgery performed in the presence of obstruction, perforation, and/or peritonitis (OPP-surgery). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using data from the 2007-2011 National Inpatient Sample, we identified patients with a diagnosis of CRC undergoing colorectal surgery...

INTRODUCTION: Patients with schizophrenia have shorter life expectancy and one of the main causes of death is cardiovascular disease (CVD). Modifiable risk factors for CVD include diabetes mellitus (DM) and dyslipidaemia. This study aimed to establish: (a) the prevalence and correlates of DM and dyslipidaemia; (b) the proportion of those whose condition was well controlled; and (c) the incidence of undiagnosed DM and dyslipidaemia in a long-stay inpatient schizophrenia population. METHODS: Data was collected to assess the physical health status of 110 inpatients with schizophrenia who had been in hospital for over one year...